Burtscheid (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany)

Burtscheid (also spelled Botschert or Borchet), a town in German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (coordinates: 50° 45′ 56″ N, 6° 6′ 44″ E), southeast of Aachen, seat of a Mennonite congregation with a church here and in the neighboring Dutch village of Vaals. This congregation was united with the one at Maastricht in the 18th century. Until 1768 the ministers lived in Burtscheid. About 1730 A. van Leuvenig was a member of the church board; Barthelomeus van Leuvenig, a relative of his, who was a native of Burtscheid, was a preacher of the Lamist congregation in Amsterdam. Burtscheid and Vaals separated from Maastricht in 1768, but never had a preacher of their own, and the congregation vanished about 1793. About 1610 members of the Burtscheid Mennonite congregation were administrators of the property of the Catholic church of St. Michael. Though the congregation received an annual subsidy from Amsterdam from 1732, it made two large contributions (considering its small membership) to the Fund for Foreign Needs—525 guilders in 1733, and 550 in 1736.